Lego Art

A logo of Legos, not to be confused with the Lego logo.

Yesterday, in writing on logo art, it occurred to me I might also do something on Lego art. Today, as I started researching this piece I was rather stunned to see how many artists had adopted the ubiquitous little plastic "thingies" as their, own and how far they had taken them as a medium of creative self-expression. Artists such as Nathan Sawaya, Bryan Korte, Mike Doyle, Sean Kenny, Andrew Lipson, and Douglas Bagnall, among many others, have made them their own. However, other than Ole and his son Godtfred Christianson, the Danish inventors of the Lego brick, the biggest name today in Lego art is that of Nathan Sawaya, a former lawyer turned artist from New York. His pieces range in size from a tiny tree (two bricks) to works with upwards to a half a million.

 

Sawaya's museum pieces beg to be touched.

Sawaya with his scale model
of the Iwo Jima monument.

Sawaya has a one-man show, "Art of the Brick" currently running at the Discovery Channel Museum in Times Square, New York. Of course, Sawaya is not alone in producing mega-art from Legos. Moreover, the people at Lego themselves compete with their best single customer (Sawaya has 2.5 million bricks in stock). The Lego design team in May of 2013 unveiled a Star Wars X-Wing fighter comprised of 5,335,200 Lego bricks. It's a staggering 44 feet wide, 43 feet in length, and stands some 11 feet off the ground. However, at 46,000 pounds, it's unlikely to ever get off the ground. Displayed first at an assembly location on Long Island, the piece is destined for the company's Legoland amusement park in Carlsbad, California. Unlike Sawaya's pieces, which have no other component except Lego bricks and his own secret glue, the Lego X-Wing is built over a steel infrastructure designed to withstand the stress of thousands of kids climbing all over it. It's a playground toy, not a museum piece.

 

Photo by Kaishu

London's Trafalgar Square from Legoland Windsor,

the company's British garden of plastic delights.

The Lego brick had it's birth in Denmark, roughly coinciding the advent of consumer plastics around 1947, though before that similar children's building bricks had been made of cellulose acetate. Today they're made of ABS polymer (you don't want to know what ABS stands for). The tiny toy was first patented in 1958. Since then the company has grown along with the imaginative explosion of various themed sets, everything from Star Wars to Disney movies and whole architectural landmarks such as the Taj Mahal and London's Trafalgar Square. Moreover the company was founded upon two critical basics, sturdy, kid-proof quality (tests show it would take a stack of 375,000 bricks nearly 12,000 feet tall to collapse the bottom brick) and the impulse to create, whether among children or adults. 



Lindsay Lego Lohan

Lego art, from all Internet appearances, is something of a blooming cottage industry with artists offering their services in creating Lego portraits, Lego sculptures, Lego painting reproductions, Lego furniture, as well as scale models of everything from pups to people to porpoises. Some artists even boast life-size replicas of classic cars, boats, zebras, dinosaurs, and lighthouses. Lego, however, has long since ceased to be a cottage industry, with seven different Legolands and factories in four different countries creating a total of some 400-billion plastic toy bricks to tolerances as tight as two micrometers. It's estimated that over the years, the company has produced enough bricks for everyone on earth to have a set of 82.

Andrew Lipson's Lego version of M.C. Escher's famous print, Relativity.

 

Creative Toys

Looking good enough to eat (but don't, they're mostly salt and flour).

When one contemplates buying a toy aimed at sparking within a child the creative gifts we all have to one degree or another, two primary names come to mind--Lego and Etch A Sketch. Both I've written about before, though mostly from an grown-up art perspective. In looking back at what adult artists have done with both, it's easy to forget that they are, in fact, still just toys. There's an old saying that the only difference in men and boys is the price of their toys. That may be true, but where creative toys such as Legos and Etch A Sketch are concerned, there's really no difference except, perhaps in the quantities involved. I was a teenager before either of these toys came along. However I will always be grateful to my parents for their allowing me to indulge in all manner of creativity through the very perceptive choice of toys they provided.

 

Although I never paid much attention to them, even Tinker Toys
came with instructions seemingly designed to limit children's
natural impulse to created their own...whatchamacallits.

Munich Building Blocks, ca. 1900.

Although some of the earliest creative toys date back to the late 1800s, the choices parents had back then were pretty much limited to wooden blocks and watercolor sets. Architect, Frank Lloyd Wright is said to have been inspired by just such a set of wooden blocks, developing spatial instincts in childhood that became a part of his groundbreaking architecture decades later. I believe my own first creative toy was a set of Tinker Toys (still sold today). They are just one of hundreds of such creative toys parents now have to choose from, though some stretch the definition of creativity, offering a child only limited possibilities. Even Lego is guilty of this. The kid should start with the materials and "invent" a new toy. All too often today, toy companies themselves invent the toy then ask the child to merely replicate it.

 

At left, the 1920 patent diagram filed by John Lloyd Wright (Frank's second oldest son.)

From Tinker Toys I moved to the more substantial Lincoln Logs (above), which were fun, but once more the possibilities were limited by the size of the sets. From there I moved from pioneer architecture to the 1950s brick houses utilizing sets of American Plastic Bricks, which were lots more fun than logs until you stepped on one in your bare feet. Given enough of the little red plastic pieces, the sky (or at least the ceiling) was the limit. I recall building skyscrapers five or six stories tall (roughly four feet in height). Later, in my early teens (about 1960) came the Skyline Set (bottom), designed specifically for high-rise constructions, though in a style reminiscent of the 1920s. My mighty edifices reached five or six feet in height. Then, about the same time, I got the ultimate creative "toy," a set of oil paints. I've never been the same since.

 

Inspiring young architects of the future with styles from the past.

Modeling clay--neat, clean, and colorful.

The Erector Set, then and now.

Along the way, I can vaguely recall some of the more conventional creative toys, modeling clay (clay mixed with Vaseline), and later, a distant cousin, Play Doh (above, left) after I was too old for that sort of thing. I had an Erector Set too (above, right), but never cared much for it--too industrial, I guess. I also remember playing with the unforgettable Mr. Potato Head (below) with his wife, children, and eccentric distant relatives.

Recognize these guys?

As I grew into teaching, I often taught the use of creative toys such as clay and later architectural model building (using cardboard, fabric, clear acetate, balsa wood, paint, sawdust, etc.). However it took the advent of the graphics-capable home computer to bring forth a whole new level of creative toys. It all started with Will Wright and his earliest version Sim City (below) released in 1989. I'm not sure just when I first latched onto it, but I quickly became addicted. At least three newer versions of this city planning and management game followed. Even today, I enjoy going back and laying out growing communities much as I did on paper as a teenager.

I'm not sure, but I think this is from the original incarnation of Sim City.

From Sim City came Wright's The Sims. I never played that first version much. My primitive Packard Bell computer at the time wasn't capable of handling the considerable graphics demands even this primitive first edition entailed. I did, however get very involved in Sims 2, which was heavily laden with architectural capabilities tapping into my unrealized childhood dream of becoming an architect. Today, despite the release of the Sims 4, I'm still creating outlandish dream houses in lush, tropical locations, using the Sims 3 version. And yes, I even test out my designs from time to time with real, live, unpredictable Sims.

Some the little people who live, work, and play on my hard drive.

It wasn't Sim City, but it was the closest the 1960s had to offer.

 

White House Copies

No, it's not Donald Trump's plan to re-landscape the south lawn.
This White House copy really exists. It's in Dallas, Texas.

Millions of Americans would love to live in the White House. Only a couple handfuls are willing to pay the price. Along with the beautiful, white, Georgian mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. comes the most the most difficult job in the world. Just ask President Trump. Along with that job come a significant loss of privacy, incessant criticism, political intrigue, and more headaches than the "winner" of such a prize could ever have imagined. In effect, it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. The plush mansion, the massive , black limousines, Air Force One, a Marine helicopter, a wooded retreat in the Catoctin Mountains, and a sizable White House staff simply makes the job possible and a bit more pleasant.

The White House in Washington, D.C. Look but don't touch.

However, if you have between four million and ten million dollars (depending upon the number of chandeliers desired) and you have a yearning to live in the White House (or a close substitute), without all the hassles of the job doing so entails, then look up a real estate agent just across the Potomac in McLean, Virginia, there are two pretty good White House replicas (below) you can snap up for about four million. They're not perfect. They've been scaled down to human proportions and modified somewhat to the tastes of the builders and numerous occupants since, but they should suffice to impress your friends and relatives.

Neither are pure white and both porticos are poorly proportioned, but only former presidents would notice.

A while back I placed the White House as number 8 in my list of The Ten Most Beautiful Buildings in the World. If imitation is the sincerest form of praise, then I should probably move it up a few notches on my list. However, the White House is the only building on my list which anyone is likely to build their own version. And if you think the examples I've pictured above are the only attempts to emulate architect James Hoban's White House you'd be wrong. Depending upon how much authenticity and the scale you might demand, there are probably at least a dozen others all over the world.

Leinster House, Dublin, Ireland, dates from 1745-47.

Actually, Hoban's design for the White House in Washington, D.C. is, in fact, an imitation of a similar such mansion known originally as Kildare House in Dublin, Ireland. It's referred to today as Leinster House (above). And, except for the majestic porticos, and several dozen coats of white paint (which were added after the 1814 fire) the two buildings bear a remarkable resemblance.

Built in 2001, the cost was a little less than $10-million.

Perhaps the most accurate privately own version of the White House is nowhere near Washington. It's in Atlanta, Georgia, at 3687 Briarcliff Road (sometimes listed as Decatur, Georgia). From the front, the match with the real White House is perfect, though the building has been reduced in size to 3/4 scale. However, despite the curved portico in the rear, the other elevation appears to be straight out of Hollywood or perhaps Palm Springs. The house was built by Atlanta home builder Fred Milani, an American citizen born in Iran. Inside the facade the Atlanta mansion departs from any semblance of White House replication with a hodgepodge of details including a number of religious images, American political iconography, and McMansion details like coffered ceilings, wrought iron banisters and a sweeping staircase. The home also includes an Oval Office with a replica of George W. Bush’s desk. There is also a Lincoln bedroom with a picture of Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation painted on a bedroom wall.

Chinese White House, Hangzhou, China

The great imitators of the best America has to offer also have their version of the White House (above). This one was built by Huang Qiaoling, one of the richest men in China, costing around $10 million. His replica of the White House is the centerpiece of his garden so that he can “meet business associates in the "Oval Office.” Huang made a few tweaks to suit his personal tastes. For example, in one cabinet, he has substituted tomes on American history with minibar bottles of Remy Martin and a gaggle of dime-store ceramic ducks. On the mantelpiece of the Green Room stands a statue of Genghis Khan, whom ‘President Huang,’ as his staff insists on calling him, counts as his personal hero. And outside the window of the Blue Room, which Huang uses as his office, is a one-third-size Mount Rushmore with employees’ quarters tucked in the back. Those Chinese think of everything, don't they?

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Little White House" in Warm Springs,
Georgia--barely a cottage as compared to its D.C. counterpart.

In Warm Springs, Georgia stands The Little White House. It was built in 1932 as the personal retreat of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States. Insofar as it being a replica of the Big White House, it's probably the worst copy ever copied. Not only is in much smaller, but bears only a passing resemblance to Roosevelt's presidential residence. Roosevelt kept the house after he became President, using it as a presidential retreat. Of all the White House replicas, this one has the closest connection to a president than any other. Roosevelt died there on April 12, 1945, three months into his fourth term. He was having his portrait painted at the time.

Lego White House, Legoland, Carlsbad, California

Though not private residences, the classical architectural lines of Hoban's Executive Mansion have also found there way into at least two tourist destination. The first is Legoland located in Carlsbad, California (above) where the White House is replicated totally in plastic Lego "bricks." In Corona California, John and Jan Zweifel have what is considered to be one of the world’s greatest miniature houses, a recreation of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue which has taken over 38 years in building (below). It is updated with each administration. Built at a one-foot-to-one-inch scale, the touring model replica allows millions a glimpse into the off-limits life of each president.

John and Jan Zweifel's miniature masterpiece is not a dollhouse.  

And finally, a White House replication so monstrously silly I'm somewhat reluctant to include it among all these others. Tucked away (fortunately) in the Wisconsin Dells near Mt. Olympus Water & Theme Park, is what's called Top Secret. Basically it's an upside-down White House with the exterior architectural detail relatively accurate. Admission is $12. Kids love it, adults usually come away wondering why they wasted their time and money. It's actually a glorified haunted house with little or no tour guide references to the real White House. Trip Advisor review seldom give it more than one "star."

I'll hold off on the political wisecracks.

 

Found Object Art

Still-life with Chair Caning, 1912, Pablo Picasso

Is it art, or is it not? Pablo Picasso may have been the first, (or at least one of the first) to take an ordinary object and turn it into art. His Still-life with Chair Caning (above), from 1912, is said to have started the ball rolling along this line. In it he took wallpaper with a chair caning image and attached it to his canvas, working the pre-printed (found object) into his painted composition. It was innovative. Picasso called it "collage" (loosely translated French for "to paste"). I doubt very much if anyone (now or then) would not consider his oval abstract image to be art.

The Fountain (the date is that of this reproduction), Marcel Duchamp

Then, in New York. less than a year later and shortly before the famous 1913 Armory Show, Marcel Duchamp not only kept the ball rolling, but practically booted it off the field with his famous The Fountain (above), a urinal, laid on it's back, and signed, "R. Mutt." (This type of conceptual art is sometimes referred to as "readymade.") Like Picasso's wallpaper, it was a "found" object, though purchased by Duchamp specifically to become an art object. The show's jurying committee (of which Duchamp was a member), despite his spirited defense, consigned his "Fountain" to the back alley. The consensus was, he'd gone too far. Not only was it considered in poor taste (perhaps the primary objection) but it was manifestly not art in that Duchamp had not made the object but merely declared it to be art.

"If I say it's art, it IS art."
Picasso's "Bull" (uppermost image) is a bicycle seat
with handlebars welded to it.

Any argument along this line today is purely academic. Artists "make" art. If an artist "makes" a work of art by simply making an artistic statement pronouncing it to be art, then that alone makes it an art object though most academics would prefer the artist sign the work, title it intelligently, and make some changes to the object's appearance in doing so). Duchamp did all three. And before you discount any such art, be aware that a long line of well-respected famous artist such as Salvador Dalí, Jim Dine, Marcel Duchamp, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Jasper Johns, Joseph Kosuth, Louise Nevelson, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, and Kurt Schwitters have created thousands of works of art using Picasso's "assemblage" formula (above). And when found "objects" (usually printed items) are used on a flat surface, with or without paint, the technique is referred to by Picasso's term, "collage" although British artist Jane Perkins blurs the line between the two considerably (below).



British artist, Jane Perkins, has a lot of patience. Since 2008,
she has been recreating classic artworks and portraits of iconic
figures using thousands of tiny found objects, such as buttons,
beads, LEGO pieces, and shells.

Sky light, Light Years Away,
Lynn Aldrichto 

Over the past few years I've written about sculpture made from paper, fire, steel, ice, snow, food, glass, ice, and water just to name a few. Some involved found objects, some not so much. In any case, found object art in the years since Picasso and his ilk has come a long way. Contemporary artist have taken an "adopt and adapt" path in following the footsteps of the art form's 20th-century pioneers.


Tim Holtz recycling time.

As with virtually all forms of art, the results range from the stunningly beautiful sponge painting, Sky light, Light Years Away (left), by Lynn Aldrichto, to the delicately feminine clock creation of Tim Holtz (below). Then there's the "macho" ugly Holy Cow by Sean O'Meallie (below).

Holy Cow, Sean O'Meallie

A recycled collage using scraps of paper.

 

Cookies for Santa

Illustrator, Robert Sauber's Santa taking a break. Notice the
strategic product placement off to the right.

Hey, Grinch, you're no cookie.
How'd you get in here?

We are fortunate that Santa Claus has a sweet tooth. Otherwise, there would be no need for cookies and milk under the Christmas tree, and in fact, probably no such thing as Christmas cookies. Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but for me, one of the highlights of this holiday season, the number one staple on my food pyramid, is the Christmas cookie. In pondering a Christmas topic to write about, I suddenly pounded my forehead with the heel of my hand and muttered, "Of course, why didn't I think of that before? CHRISTMAS COOKIES." So I went in search of some of the most creative, the most artistic, the most exquisitely beautiful examples of this Santa Claus inspired art form I could fine. Here I pay little attention to what went into them and give only passing reference as to how they're made. For our purposes, we're going to assume that ALL Christmas cookies tastes good, that they're good for you, and that, as with most forms of art, taste is subjective and therefore largely pointless to discuss.

 

Cookies for Santa, Jersey Girl Graphics

Eat'em or hang'em on the tree.

For simplicity's sake, we're going to assume that all cookies this time of the year are baked for the benefit of fueling Santa's arduous, rein-deer-propelled jaunt around the world in twenty-four hours in an effort to reduce the ex-cess inventory of Mattel, Has-bro, Lego, Tyco, Nintendo, Fisher-Price, and Toys-R-Us. However, before you can bribe Santa with your sucrose-laden feast, you need a plate to place them on. Jersey Girl Graphics (above) has just what you need. Or, you can simply attach a ribbon and hang them on the tree as seen with the little jewels at right--no plate re-quired.

The recipe and instructions are listed below.

Use half of an Oreo cookie
as a base.

A few years ago, my wife began baking meringue cookies for our family get-togethers during the holidays. They were a big hit. In researching Santa Claus cookies, I came to realize that this light, airy, sugary substance has been turned to great creative advantage by pastry chefs (amateur and professional) in their pursuit of holiday cookie excellence. I won't say they're easy to make but then again, they're not as hard as they look, especially for anyone with an ounce of cake decorating skill. (The little white Christmas trees (right) uses the same basic meringue recipe...except for the food coloring, of course.) The recipe and especially the all-important instructions are below:
 

Meringue Christmas Poinsettia Cookies--

 

Ingredients: (about 25-30 medium-size flowers)

 * 4 large egg whites (no yolks)
 * 3/4 cup sugar (not powdered sugar)
 * pinch of salt
 * 1 1/2 tsp. extract (vanilla, mint, orange, or lemon..etc.)
 * red, green and yellow gel food coloring
 * rainbow luster dust (optional)
 * small brush (optional, used to apply disco dust)
 * 3"x3"parchment squares

* flower petals -tip Wilton #70
* green leafs - tip Wilton #352
* yellow dots - tip Wilton #3

* flower nail (if you don't have a flower nail, you can easily use a stainless steel meat thermometer covered with plastic wrap to protect the surface).

 

Mix and beat at high speed the first four ingredients for several minutes until stiff, then separate into three unequal masses before adding food coloring. The largest mass should be red, the second largest green, the smallest, yellow.

 

Piping and Baking:

 

1. Fit your piping bags with your tips (as indicated above) and fill them with meringue. Preheat the oven to only 180 F (extremely critical).

 2. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

 3. Place a dot of meringue onto the flower nail and place a piece of parchment square on top to secure it.

 4. Pipe the first row of 5 petals (as seen above) using red meringue.

 5. Pipe the second row of 5 petals, slightly shorter and offset to the first row

 6. Add green leaves

 7. Add yellow dots

 8. Dip small dry brush into a disco dust and shake of the excess over freshly piped meringues (optional).

 9. Bake for 3 hours (also extremely critical), then turn the oven off and let the cookies cool in the oven.  You are not so much baking the meringue but simply drying it out. Store in an airtight container.

 

"And all through the house, not a creature was stirring,
not even a mouse."

These can also be used to
decorate other Christmas
cookies.
 

Perhaps more candy than cookie, the non-stirring rodents (above) are basically one and a quarter marshmallows melted together then with a slender strip of string licorice poked in the rear for a tail. The whole carcass is then dipped into a chocolate coating, and refrigerated to harden. Kids love eating such "gross" stuff. On a more elegant note, though still more candy than cookie, the delicate snowflakes (left) are created by piping fondant onto waxed paper and decorating with a candy silver bead. Just be sure to count the number of snowflake "arms." Those with more than six are in extremely bad taste. Accidents should be eaten as soon as possible.

 

Merry Christmas from Jim and Sharon Lane
(and Santa).

 

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Box

Copyright, Jim Lane

Wright's Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona, ca. 1935-55. At first glance,                 
it would that there are no "boxes" here; but if one looks closely,                
they're present, just heavily disguised.             

Fallingwater, a good place to begin.

One of the goals in our recent cross-country jaunt this spring was to see this country at something less than 30,000 feet (at times we got almost that high, though). For me personally, it was to immerse myself in the work of my favorite architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Before, I'd only seen his Fallingwater on Bear Run in southwestern Pennsylvania, and that had been thirty-some years ago (probably time to go back and see if it's still there). Although his 1935-37 architectural masterpiece was an excellent place to start in the pursuit of Wright and his theories, it was, nonetheless, only a beginning. My son is stationed in the U.S. Air Force just outside Phoenix, which is just outside Scottsdale, which is just outside Wright's winter home, Taliesin West. I bored him to death as he accompanied me on a two or three hour exploration of the place. Then, passing through Wisconsin on the way home a few weeks later, I spent most of another day getting to know the original Taliesin just outside Spring Green in the southeastern quadrant of that state. And finally a few days later amid Wright's old "stomping ground" in Chicago's Oak Park, I toured the iconic Robie House.

 

The  Winslow House floor plan,
1893, arranging boxes.

The Winslow House, Oak Park,
Illinois, rectangles upon rectangles.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed more than a thousand structures during his career spanning more than seventy years, of which some some 532 were built. Of those, about 480 still survive in one form or another; so I have my work cut out for me in any future exploration of Wright's work. I hesitate to call myself an "expert" on Wright, but I've gotten to the point of sometimes adding commentary to the memorized spiel of tour guides, sometimes even almost to the point of correcting them (or wishing to). I guess it could be said I've reached the level of being able to ask intelligent questions of the tour guides, ones they very often are unprepared to answer.

Copyright, Jim Lane

Hillside House, Spring Green, Wisconsin, ca. 1902, at best, a compromise with the "box."
The drafting studio is on the upper level to the left, the dining hall and
auditorium are on the lower level on the right.

My most persistent question in touring Wright's architectural artifacts was this: "Why did it take Wright so long to discover the curve?" As early as 1902, with his design for what's come to be known as "Hillside House" (or home or school) Wright claimed to have "broken free of the box." While at Taliesin I visited Hillside House (below). It's currently the home of the Taliesin Fellowship when they're in town during the summer. It now featuress a large drafting hall, a dining room, kitchen, and small auditorium. It is an important Wright structure, much modified and enlarged since 1902; and one can easily see how Wright might have considered himself liberated from the proverbial "box" when one compares it to his 1890 vintage Winslow House (above). Yet despite his boast, any "freedom" Wright may have felt in escaping the box was more on the order of a compromise rather than an escape. In looking over the vast array of Wright's structures from that time on, until shortly after WW II when the Guggenheim first began taking shape in Wright's fertile mind, he shows little or no evidence of "box rejection" in any of his designs.

 



The origin of Wright's captivity within the box? Taliesin West suggests it may
have started in his childhood with a set of toy blocks like these.

I used the word "compromise" above with respect to the fact that Wright, with his love of diagonals and soaring interior spaces, could easily be said to have very much modified the traditional architectural box, for the most part making it longer, lower, and flatter, emphasizing the horizontal over the vertical. However, outright rejection or "escape" was more a figment of Wright's massive imagination and ego than reality. It's hard to escape from a mindset embedded in one's psyche from childhood when Wright's mother is said to have provided him with a set of toy building blocks (virtually all cubical in shape). Taliesin West displays a set of such blocks (above) from the 1870s, suggesting the seminal influence they played in Wright's decision to study architecture.

The Robie House, 1912, Oak Park, Illinois, the creative use of cubes.
It's little wonder their gift shop sells a Lego version of the house.

The "box" has been a mainstay of human habitation for so many thousands of years for one overriding reason. It is the most stable, the most economical, the most practical interior space known to man. The human mind (if not the human feet as well) prefer a flat, level surface upon which to walk. Likewise, the human mind, gravity, and that flat walking surface, indeed the basic human anatomy, tends to prefer vertical walls. That pretty much eliminates all shapes besides cubes and cylinders. However, cylinders have no corners and thus tend to waste space needed for out-of-the-way storage of the "stuff" human beings build structures to protect in the first place. So, the box it is. As it evolved, architecture became the art and science of arranging, stacking, lighting, waterproofing, fireproofing, and decorating structurally sound amalgamations of varying numbers of cubes--boxes.

The Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium, Tempe, Arizona,
designed, 1959, completed 1962-64. Freedom from the box, the luxury of  the curve.

The Guggenheim Museum, 1959, New York,
Wright's cyclonic escape from the box.

That's not to say architects never thought "outside the box," as indeed, Wright finally did during the last decade or so of his career. But before Wright, seldom were such mental meanderings much more than attempts to break the monotony of the cube or provide a much-needed pivotal center of interest. Such shapes included the aforementioned cylinder, the dome, the pyramid, and the cone, all of which have had brief supporting or decorative roles in the history of architecture. Yet they only serve to underline what a startling departure New York's Guggenheim Museum (left) was for Wright personally and modern architecture in general. From that point on, Wright began to employ curves of varying degrees of "radicality" in structures such as Milwaukee's Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church (below), the Marin County Civic Center, Kalita Humphreys Theater in Dallas, the Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium (above), Tempe, Arizona, and the Monona Terrace Community Center in Madison, Wisconsin. All were completed shortly before and some well after Wright's death in 1959. However in all my travels, in all my intimate explorations of Wright's persistent boxes, I've never once come upon anyone who could explain why Wright took so long to discover the curve.

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
designed 1956, built, 1959-61. Hardly a box in sight.

Goodbye Bauhaus, goodbye FLW; hello Frank Gehry.